WEBVTT 00:01.840 --> 00:04.440 Professor Amy Hungerford: We finished 00:04.441 --> 00:07.491 Black Boy last time, and one of the big questions 00:07.485 --> 00:10.355 coming out of my discussion of that autobiography is: 00:10.362 --> 00:13.792 how do you manage the question of context in reading a novel or 00:13.794 --> 00:16.344 an autobiography--in reading any text? 00:16.340 --> 00:21.690 And we had a very complex publishing history to think 00:21.685 --> 00:24.045 about with that text. 00:24.050 --> 00:28.340 Flannery O'Connor's work raises questions of a similar kind, 00:28.343 --> 00:30.603 but they look very different. 00:30.600 --> 00:35.820 And so, my lectures on Flannery O'Connor will highlight the 00:35.820 --> 00:41.220 methodologies that we can bring to any reading of a novel, 00:41.220 --> 00:45.730 and it will highlight the differences between different 00:45.729 --> 00:50.489 methodologies and what they allow us to see in a different 00:50.488 --> 00:52.858 text. Flannery O'Connor, 00:52.860 --> 00:56.690 as most of you probably know, is a Southern writer. 00:56.690 --> 01:00.350 She is very often assimilated to a whole group of southern 01:00.351 --> 01:03.311 writers who were working in the 1930s and '40s, 01:03.306 --> 01:05.166 the "Southern Agrarians." 01:05.170 --> 01:09.650 She was friends with a lot of the major figures of that 01:09.650 --> 01:14.130 movement, especially Allen Tate and Caroline Gordon. 01:14.129 --> 01:18.069 She lived out her life mostly in a small town called 01:18.069 --> 01:19.999 Milledgeville, Georgia. 01:20.000 --> 01:23.100 She was born in Savannah in 1925. 01:23.099 --> 01:26.569 She studied writing at the Iowa Writers Workshop. 01:26.569 --> 01:30.659 She lived in New York for a short time, but she was 01:30.661 --> 01:34.261 afflicted with lupus, a very serious illness, 01:34.262 --> 01:37.702 and she died at the age of 39 in 1964. 01:37.700 --> 01:40.360 So, she lived a pretty short life. 01:40.360 --> 01:43.870 Over the course of that life, she wrote mostly short stories, 01:43.870 --> 01:47.030 and so she is very much known for her short stories. 01:47.030 --> 01:48.940 She has a couple of novels. 01:48.940 --> 01:51.840 Of them, this is, I think, the most successful. 01:51.840 --> 01:56.280 01:56.280 --> 01:58.910 O'Connor, you may also know, 01:58.908 --> 02:02.638 has been understood as a religious writer. 02:02.640 --> 02:06.830 She was a Catholic, and she very much made her 02:06.831 --> 02:12.611 Catholicism at the center of all the things that she said about 02:12.605 --> 02:15.115 her fictional practice. 02:15.120 --> 02:19.990 And so, we're going to see a couple of those things today. 02:19.990 --> 02:23.650 Let's look--just to begin with, if you brought your 02:23.646 --> 02:27.006 books--let's look at the cover of this book. 02:27.010 --> 02:29.350 What does this cover say to you? 02:29.349 --> 02:31.349 What does this image remind you of? 02:31.350 --> 02:34.220 What does it look like to you? 02:34.220 --> 02:35.550 Do you want to answer that? 02:35.550 --> 02:36.820 Student: Is it the Sacred 02:36.822 --> 02:38.892 Heart?Professor Amy Hungerford: It's the Sacred 02:38.894 --> 02:41.224 Heart, yes. It's the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 02:41.220 --> 02:46.290 In Catholic iconography of a certain kind, 02:46.292 --> 02:53.722 the figure of Christ is shown usually parting His clothes and 02:53.715 --> 02:59.525 His flesh and showing you His Sacred Heart, 02:59.530 --> 03:06.390 which is usually crowned with flame and often encircled with 03:06.393 --> 03:10.583 thorns. So it's an image of Christ the 03:10.578 --> 03:14.028 suffering godhead: the very human, 03:14.031 --> 03:19.581 fleshly person who will part His own flesh in order to 03:19.576 --> 03:24.536 connect with, in order to redeem, 03:24.540 --> 03:29.040 the believer. So right in the packaging of 03:29.039 --> 03:33.179 this novel that we have today--this cover has changed 03:33.180 --> 03:37.300 over time--nevertheless, even today, that very Catholic 03:37.299 --> 03:40.449 iconography is right on the front of the cover. 03:40.449 --> 03:43.899 And when you see Wise Blood, that title, 03:43.902 --> 03:48.212 right below the Sacred Heart, you can't help but think of: 03:48.211 --> 03:51.681 well, this blood is somehow the blood of Christ. 03:51.680 --> 03:53.780 That's the kind of blood we're talking about. 03:53.780 --> 03:57.110 It's already entered a sort of metaphorical register, 03:57.113 --> 03:59.813 religious register, in the way this book is 03:59.806 --> 04:03.236 packaged. Then, when we open up the 04:03.240 --> 04:08.750 front, we see the author's note to the second edition, 04:08.752 --> 04:15.202 and this was something O'Connor added to the novel in 1962. 04:15.199 --> 04:20.259 I just want to read that with you today. 04:20.260 --> 04:22.260 She says: Wise Blood has 04:22.257 --> 04:24.607 reached the age of ten and is still alive. 04:24.610 --> 04:28.040 My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, 04:28.038 --> 04:30.608 and I am gratified to be able to say it. 04:30.610 --> 04:33.910 The book was written with zest, and if possible it should be 04:33.913 --> 04:36.433 read that way. It is a comic novel about a 04:39.947 --> 04:42.807 serious. For all comic novels that are 04:42.806 --> 04:46.556 any good must be about matters of life and death. 04:46.560 --> 04:50.130 Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally 04:50.127 --> 04:52.697 innocent of theory, but one with certain 04:52.704 --> 04:55.704 preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to 04:55.699 --> 04:59.629 some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for 04:59.628 --> 05:03.238 readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great 05:03.235 --> 05:06.095 consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's 05:06.097 --> 05:10.477 integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of 05:10.479 --> 05:15.319 the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his 05:15.321 --> 05:17.411 mind. For the author, 05:17.410 --> 05:22.780 Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. 05:22.779 --> 05:27.759 So, right up front, we are told that Hazel Motes is 05:27.756 --> 05:33.396 a Christian in spite of himself, that this is how we are to 05:33.396 --> 05:37.906 understand this character who we will come to know. 05:37.910 --> 05:42.060 I also want to give another layer to this understanding of 05:42.064 --> 05:46.444 O'Connor as a religious writer by looking at what she said in 05:46.436 --> 05:50.656 her correspondence to one of her readers who asked her some 05:50.663 --> 05:55.543 questions, and this is on the handout that 05:55.537 --> 05:59.537 I passed around. This is a letter to a man 05:59.541 --> 06:01.581 named Ben Griffith from 1954. 06:01.579 --> 06:05.239 So she had just finished Wise Blood, and 06:05.239 --> 06:08.829 people are starting to read it, ask her questions. 06:08.829 --> 06:10.939 She was a prolific correspondent. 06:10.939 --> 06:13.199 She was very generous in her letter writing. 06:13.199 --> 06:16.249 She would write to almost anyone who wrote to her. 06:16.250 --> 06:18.840 She would write back in a substantive way. 06:18.839 --> 06:22.199 I think it's in part that, suffering from lupus, 06:22.200 --> 06:25.990 she was very much confined to her house in Georgia, 06:25.990 --> 06:29.770 and the letter writing, this kind of correspondence, 06:29.765 --> 06:34.205 was certainly a way for her to keep in contact with the world 06:34.208 --> 06:37.538 of readers and other writers and friends. 06:37.540 --> 06:38.610 So he had written to her. 06:38.610 --> 06:45.060 He was teaching writing at a local college. 06:45.060 --> 06:48.670 He's obviously been asking her about the sources of some of the 06:48.674 --> 06:52.584 images and characters and themes in Wise Blood. So, 06:52.579 --> 06:54.669 I want to point out a couple of things. 06:54.670 --> 06:58.470 This is the first full paragraph: 06:58.470 --> 07:01.270 I don't know how to cure the sourcitis, 07:01.271 --> 07:04.961 except to tell you that I can discover a good many possible 07:04.964 --> 07:07.324 sources myself for Wise Blood, 07:07.319 --> 07:11.619 but I am often embarrassed to find that I read the sources 07:11.623 --> 07:13.813 after I had written the book. 07:13.810 --> 07:16.060 I have been exposed to Wordsworth's Intimation 07:16.062 --> 07:18.552 Ode, but that is all I can say about it. 07:18.550 --> 07:21.440 I have one of those food-chopper brains that nothing 07:21.435 --> 07:23.355 comes out of the way it went in. 07:23.360 --> 07:26.050 The Oedipus business comes nearer to home. 07:26.050 --> 07:29.720 Of course, Haze Motes is not an Oedipus figure, 07:29.724 --> 07:32.294 but there are obvious resemblances. 07:32.290 --> 07:34.630 At the time I was writing the last of the book, 07:34.627 --> 07:37.217 I was living in Connecticut [actually very close, 07:37.220 --> 07:40.520 here at Yale, and one of the people who is 07:40.517 --> 07:44.057 still at Yale, Penny Laurens--I don't know if 07:44.055 --> 07:48.635 you've met her--she was married to Robert Fitzgerald, 07:48.640 --> 07:51.550 and she knew Flannery O'Connor]. 07:51.550 --> 07:54.330 When I was living in Connecticut with the Robert 07:54.327 --> 07:57.867 Fitzgeralds, Robert Fitzgerald translated the Theban Cycle 07:57.872 --> 08:00.712 with Dudley Fitz, and the translation of 08:00.707 --> 08:04.467 Oedipus Rex had just come out and I was much taken with 08:04.469 --> 08:06.659 it. Anyway, all I can say is I did 08:06.659 --> 08:08.719 a lot of thinking about Oedipus. 08:12.003 --> 08:14.703 for O'Connor. When she talks about education 08:14.703 --> 08:17.563 or learning--and if you read more in this letter (I won't go 08:17.563 --> 08:21.593 through the whole thing), you will see that--she's very 08:21.591 --> 08:23.251 self-deprecating. 08:23.250 --> 08:27.130 She says she has "what passes for an education in this day and 08:27.125 --> 08:29.015 age." She says that she has read a 08:29.022 --> 08:31.982 little bit of Kafka and "doesn't know what to make of him, 08:31.980 --> 08:33.900 but it makes you a bolder writer." 08:33.899 --> 08:36.519 She reads a little Henry James because she thinks that makes 08:36.521 --> 08:38.741 her a better writer, somehow, but she doesn't quite 08:38.742 --> 08:42.262 know how. There's always this veneer of 08:42.256 --> 08:48.226 innocence, or lack of learning, or lack of sophistication; 08:48.230 --> 08:53.650 so, she is presenting herself as a simple person. 08:53.649 --> 08:57.859 I think that's important, although not directly connected 08:57.860 --> 09:01.920 to her presentation of herself as a Catholic person. 09:01.919 --> 09:06.289 I think it does factor into her sense that the truth she is 09:06.290 --> 09:10.740 accessing, or the truth that she is trying to present to the 09:10.736 --> 09:15.426 world in her stories, is one that even a child might 09:15.433 --> 09:17.593 be able to understand. 09:17.590 --> 09:21.780 And that fits very comfortably within a New Testament 09:21.783 --> 09:25.173 understanding of the teaching of Christ. 09:25.169 --> 09:30.279 So, Christ is that one to whom the little children can come, 09:30.277 --> 09:34.867 and I think she cultivates that childlike sense in her 09:34.865 --> 09:36.765 self-presentation. 09:36.769 --> 09:40.739 But then there is this very explicit discussion of her 09:40.742 --> 09:43.592 Catholicism, a little further down: 09:43.590 --> 09:47.080 My background and my inclinations are both Catholic, 09:47.080 --> 09:50.020 and I think this is very apparent in the book. 09:50.019 --> 09:52.539 Something is usually said about Kafka in connection with Wise 09:52.539 --> 09:54.939 Blood, but I have never succeeded in making my way 09:54.940 --> 09:56.940 through The Castle or The Trial, 09:56.940 --> 09:59.250 and I wouldn't pretend to know anything about Kafka. 09:59.250 --> 10:01.340 I think reading a little of him perhaps makes you a bolder 10:01.340 --> 10:03.950 writer …And so on. 10:03.950 --> 10:09.560 If you turn over, this is another letter to Ben 10:09.556 --> 10:16.256 Griffith written fairly shortly after this first one. 10:16.259 --> 10:21.189 She expands a little bit on this sense of her Catholicism. 10:21.190 --> 10:23.060 This is in the middle of the page: 10:23.059 --> 10:26.959 Let me assure you that no one but a Catholic could have 10:26.960 --> 10:30.990 written Wise Blood even though it is a book about a kind 10:30.990 --> 10:32.550 of Protestant saint. 10:32.549 --> 10:36.469 It reduces Protestantism to the twin ultimate absurdities of the 10:36.469 --> 10:40.019 Church without Christ or the Holy Church of Christ without 10:40.015 --> 10:43.195 Christ, which no pious Protestant would 10:43.198 --> 10:48.108 do, and of course no unbeliever or agnostic could have written 10:48.114 --> 10:52.954 it because it is entirely redemption centered in thought. 10:52.950 --> 10:56.300 Not too many people are willing to see this, and perhaps it is 10:56.304 --> 10:59.884 hard to see, because Hazel Motes is such an admirable nihilist. 10:59.879 --> 11:03.879 His nihilism leads him back to the fact of his redemption, 11:03.878 --> 11:08.158 however, which is what he would have liked so much to get away 11:08.158 --> 11:10.418 from. When you start describing the 11:10.416 --> 11:13.776 significance of a symbol like the tunnel, which recurs in the 11:13.781 --> 11:15.931 book, you immediately begin to limit 11:15.932 --> 11:18.262 it, and a symbol should go on deepening. 11:18.259 --> 11:20.659 Everything should have a wider significance. 11:20.659 --> 11:23.029 But I am a novelist, not a critic, 11:23.028 --> 11:27.188 and I can excuse myself from explication de texte on 11:27.191 --> 11:29.571 that ground. The real reason of course is 11:29.574 --> 11:33.454 laziness. There is that characteristic 11:33.451 --> 11:35.491 self-deprecation. 11:35.490 --> 11:41.880 With letters like this--which were published copiously in a 11:41.883 --> 11:48.393 beautiful edition that Sally Fitzgerald edited--with letters 11:48.386 --> 11:51.456 like this, or her frequent essays and 11:51.455 --> 11:54.965 lectures, which are collected in a book called Mystery and 11:54.974 --> 11:57.284 Manners, she was expounding a 11:57.279 --> 12:01.079 certain reading of her fiction, even while she was still 12:01.082 --> 12:04.162 writing it. And those who were close to her 12:04.164 --> 12:07.644 have picked up that understanding of her fiction and 12:07.642 --> 12:11.702 promulgated it. And there's a huge critical 12:11.700 --> 12:17.470 industry around Flannery O'Connor, and at the core of it 12:17.466 --> 12:22.916 is a body of criticism that finds and articulates and 12:22.918 --> 12:28.158 explains the religious meanings of her texts. 12:28.159 --> 12:33.049 With that in mind, I want to point up to the two 12:33.050 --> 12:38.420 quotations that I put on the board to start us off today: 12:38.420 --> 12:40.530 "'I like his eyes. 12:40.529 --> 12:43.929 They don't look like they see what he's looking at, 12:43.928 --> 12:48.758 but they keep on looking.'" This is Sabbath Lily Hawks. 12:48.759 --> 12:52.799 And then, a character you haven't met yet if you stopped 12:52.799 --> 12:56.989 at page 100, Onnie Jay Holy: "'I wouldn't have you believe 12:56.985 --> 13:00.505 nothing you can't feel in your own hearts.'" 13:00.509 --> 13:05.679 These two quotations seem to me a kind of rubric under which we 13:05.678 --> 13:10.678 can start to think about what it means to read this novel, 13:10.679 --> 13:16.099 and what it means to read it in the light of the religious 13:16.098 --> 13:21.378 context that O'Connor herself, critics, marketers, 13:21.378 --> 13:25.028 have built up around her work. 13:25.029 --> 13:30.469 The first quotation from Sabbath Lily of course focuses 13:30.465 --> 13:36.175 on the eyes, and it is not hard to read into Haze Motes's name 13:36.182 --> 13:41.152 that the trope of sight is going to be important. 13:41.150 --> 13:43.760 "Haze Motes." There is that famous passage in 13:43.764 --> 13:47.044 the New Testament (or is it--oh, gosh--now I'm going to forget 13:47.041 --> 13:50.801 if it's New or Old Testament; someone will correct me): 13:50.800 --> 13:55.780 "Do not try to remove the mote from your neighbor's eye before 13:55.778 --> 13:58.878 you have removed it from your own," 13:58.879 --> 14:02.829 or "lest you fail to remove the mote from your own eye." 14:02.830 --> 14:05.720 So there is this sense of occluded sight; 14:05.720 --> 14:08.920 "Haze," that haze. 14:08.919 --> 14:13.609 Somehow, something is wrong with Haze Motes's eyes, 14:13.606 --> 14:19.096 something wrong with his sight, or rather there is something 14:19.104 --> 14:24.434 important about his sight that we're going to have to unpack. 14:24.429 --> 14:31.429 But what I want to take out of Sabbath Lily's comment about 14:31.425 --> 14:36.365 Haze is this sense of what you look at. 14:36.370 --> 14:39.800 What does Haze look at and what does he see? 14:39.799 --> 14:44.459 What do we look at when we read this novel, and what do we see? 14:44.460 --> 14:48.140 Those are questions that are going to frame the two lectures 14:48.142 --> 14:49.892 that I give on this novel. 14:49.889 --> 14:52.609 The second quotation, from Onnie Jay Holy, 14:52.606 --> 14:54.716 raises the question of sentiment. 14:54.720 --> 14:58.840 This novel--as you will soon see, once you get to the parts 14:58.844 --> 15:03.184 where Onnie Jay Holy begins to preach--this novel is very much 15:03.183 --> 15:05.533 a critique of sentimentality. 15:05.529 --> 15:09.769 If Richard Wright's ideal response to his fiction was 15:09.766 --> 15:13.836 that, for the reader, the words would disappear, 15:13.840 --> 15:19.270 and all they would be left with is their emotional response, 15:19.268 --> 15:24.418 for O'Connor it's precisely that kind of response--to any 15:24.421 --> 15:28.671 call: be it textual, be it an act of reading, 15:28.668 --> 15:32.658 an act of audition, hearing someone preach--that 15:32.660 --> 15:37.330 kind of response is precisely not the one you are 15:37.331 --> 15:39.201 supposed to have. 15:39.200 --> 15:42.870 And so I would ask you to think about a couple of simple 15:42.869 --> 15:46.599 questions as you move through this book, and as you think 15:46.604 --> 15:49.144 about what I have to say about it. 15:49.139 --> 15:52.999 One of them could begin with a reflection like this. 15:53.000 --> 15:55.950 Would you ever want to sit down to dinner with any of the people 15:55.950 --> 15:56.700 in this novel? 15:56.700 --> 16:00.100 16:00.100 --> 16:02.390 I see people shaking their heads. 16:02.389 --> 16:06.769 They are quite unlikable, and this is consistent pretty 16:06.769 --> 16:10.259 much across O'Connor's fiction: short, long, 16:10.256 --> 16:11.956 medium, whatever. 16:11.960 --> 16:16.820 Her characters are not very endearing. 16:16.820 --> 16:20.240 So you want to ask yourself why that's so. 16:20.240 --> 16:24.540 This is a conscious decision on her part, and you want to think 16:24.543 --> 16:26.073 about that decision. 16:26.070 --> 16:29.950 If there is any character who seems kind of endearing, 16:29.953 --> 16:32.613 at least for me, it's probably Enoch. 16:32.610 --> 16:36.570 And we'll talk a little bit more about him: 16:36.565 --> 16:41.645 not today, but in the second lecture and in section. 16:41.649 --> 16:47.119 So, with these questions in mind, I want you think about how 16:47.115 --> 16:52.765 we can see the novel and how we can think about it in the face 16:52.766 --> 16:58.136 of the interpretation that's already layered on to it. 16:58.139 --> 17:04.539 And what I want to do is now, kind of just descend in to the 17:04.539 --> 17:10.609 text, and read with you the passage when Haze first takes 17:10.613 --> 17:15.823 the Essex out for a spin: his wonderful car, 17:15.820 --> 17:19.920 the Essex. So, this is on page 73, 17:19.918 --> 17:24.628 is about where it begins, and I'm going to read through 17:24.633 --> 17:27.343 the next two or three pages. 17:27.339 --> 17:31.139 And I'll skip around in the book as things come up that I 17:31.144 --> 17:34.274 want to show you in other parts of the book. 17:34.269 --> 17:40.149 So let's think about seeing and theology and all the issues that 17:40.154 --> 17:43.334 are already on the table for us. 17:43.329 --> 17:45.529 I'm going to begin at the bottom of 73: 17:45.529 --> 17:48.189 "When the car was ready…."-- If you have 17:48.192 --> 17:50.452 your book, go ahead and open it up. 17:50.450 --> 17:54.540 "When the car was ready, the man and the boy stood by to 17:54.537 --> 17:56.467 watch him drive it off." 17:56.470 --> 17:59.070 (Is it the wrong page numbers? 17:59.070 --> 18:01.110 Shoot. Oh, dear. 18:01.110 --> 18:02.360 Sixty-nine. Okay. 18:02.360 --> 18:05.250 So, it's four off. 18:05.250 --> 18:09.080 Thank you for telling me. 18:09.079 --> 18:14.669 You rely on publishers and then they let you down. 18:14.670 --> 18:16.450 Okay. Does everyone have it?) 18:16.450 --> 18:20.370 When the car was ready, the man and the boy stood by to 18:20.367 --> 18:21.997 watch him drive it off. 18:22.000 --> 18:24.850 He didn't want anybody watching him because he hadn't driven a 18:24.851 --> 18:26.161 car in four or five years. 18:26.160 --> 18:28.990 The man and the boy didn't say anything while he tried to start 18:28.991 --> 18:31.471 it. They only stood there looking 18:31.467 --> 18:34.727 in at him. "I wanted this car mostly to be 18:34.727 --> 18:37.597 a house for me," he said to the man. 18:37.600 --> 18:40.760 "I ain't got any place to be." 18:40.759 --> 18:43.249 "You ain't took the brake off yet," the man said. 18:43.250 --> 18:46.130 He took the brake off and the car shot backwards because the 18:46.132 --> 18:47.552 man had left it in reverse. 18:47.549 --> 18:51.719 In a second he got it going forward and drove off crookedly 18:51.724 --> 18:55.544 past the man and boy still standing there watching. 18:55.539 --> 18:59.859 He kept going forward, thinking nothing and 18:59.861 --> 19:03.321 sweating. I just want to stop there for a 19:03.318 --> 19:07.538 minute. Haze sees the car as a kind of 19:07.543 --> 19:09.763 home. Well, how are we meant to 19:09.756 --> 19:11.616 understand the meaning of that? 19:11.619 --> 19:18.589 It has the feeling of a rare moment of explanation from Haze. 19:18.589 --> 19:23.449 He almost never explains himself to other people. 19:23.450 --> 19:29.010 Here he is accounting for his need for the car. 19:29.009 --> 19:33.609 Now, of course, O'Connor was very good at 19:33.608 --> 19:39.818 imbuing her writing with repeated symbols that grow and 19:39.816 --> 19:43.836 accrue meaning across the text. 19:43.839 --> 19:48.449 So we've already seen the trope of the house. 19:48.450 --> 19:54.800 And if you look back at 24 (oh, no--try 20; 19:54.799 --> 20:00.989 see if we can find it here.), when Haze describes--or, 20:00.991 --> 20:07.771 we sort of know through his consciousness--the story of his 20:07.766 --> 20:13.626 time in the Army, this is what we learn about how 20:13.625 --> 20:17.575 he felt there, after he's wounded: 20:17.579 --> 20:22.269 He had all the time he could want to study his soul in 20:22.265 --> 20:25.675 and assure himself that it was not there. 20:25.680 --> 20:29.530 When he was thoroughly convinced, he saw that this was 20:29.533 --> 20:31.863 something he had always known. 20:31.859 --> 20:36.039 The misery he had was a longing for home. 20:36.040 --> 20:39.180 It had nothing to do with Jesus. 20:39.180 --> 20:43.570 When the army finally let him go, he was pleased to think that 20:43.574 --> 20:45.524 he was still uncorrupted. 20:45.519 --> 20:49.229 All he wanted was to get back to Eastrod, Tennessee. 20:49.230 --> 20:52.700 The black Bible and his mother's glasses were still in 20:52.700 --> 20:54.730 the bottom of his duffle bag. 20:54.730 --> 20:58.760 He didn't read any book now, but he kept the Bible because 20:58.762 --> 21:00.462 it had come from home. 21:00.460 --> 21:04.110 He kept the glasses in case his vision should ever become 21:04.108 --> 21:04.888 dim. 21:04.890 --> 21:09.040 21:09.039 --> 21:14.739 O'Connor has already put in place in the novel through that 21:14.739 --> 21:20.339 little passage the sense that the longing for home and the 21:20.340 --> 21:26.330 longing for redemption--or the resistance to redemption--these 21:26.334 --> 21:30.564 things are very close to one another. 21:30.559 --> 21:36.439 You can mistake--here we find out about Haze--you can mistake 21:36.444 --> 21:41.254 the longing for Jesus for the longing for home, 21:41.250 --> 21:44.000 or vice versa: the longing for home, 21:43.999 --> 21:46.119 for the longing of Jesus. 21:46.119 --> 21:50.349 The Bible that he carries around is important to him 21:50.353 --> 21:52.763 because it comes from home. 21:52.759 --> 21:57.849 I want to suggest to you that the fact that it's the 21:57.847 --> 22:01.387 religious book for him, for his culture, 22:01.389 --> 22:05.189 for his family, is not of course incidental to 22:05.185 --> 22:09.145 the fact that it's what reminds him of home. 22:09.150 --> 22:14.150 It's not just that you can mistake the longing for home for 22:14.150 --> 22:16.220 the longing for Jesus. 22:16.220 --> 22:22.450 You can in some ways see religion and home as conflated. 22:22.450 --> 22:27.660 And this gets to a traditional Christian notion of the believer 22:27.657 --> 22:32.607 as not being at home in the world: that the believer somehow 22:32.614 --> 22:37.374 belongs to God's kingdom, and that this is either 22:37.373 --> 22:43.543 countercultural--at odds with the general world in which he or 22:43.537 --> 22:49.697 she would find herself--or it is totally incompatible with the 22:49.700 --> 22:52.530 world in which we live. 22:52.529 --> 22:57.709 The Bible is a physical manifestation of the proximity 22:57.707 --> 23:02.247 of the spiritual and the material in this world. 23:02.250 --> 23:06.510 So what makes him feel close to home, in a way, 23:06.512 --> 23:11.702 has to make him feel close to the religion he's trying to 23:11.700 --> 23:15.220 reject. That conflation is part of what 23:15.215 --> 23:19.475 makes it impossible for Haze to escape the question of 23:19.482 --> 23:22.472 redemption, even if he wants to answer it 23:22.472 --> 23:25.492 in a way that's at odds with how, for example, 23:25.490 --> 23:28.010 his grandfather, the preacher, 23:28.007 --> 23:31.147 would answer it. This is why he's continually 23:31.148 --> 23:33.908 mistaken for a preacher, no matter what he does. 23:33.910 --> 23:36.130 Remember he goes in to the prostitute's house, 23:36.132 --> 23:37.862 Mrs. Watts's, and he's got a hat on, 23:37.861 --> 23:40.431 and the hat just makes him look like a preacher. 23:40.430 --> 23:41.860 There's nothing he can do. 23:41.859 --> 23:44.159 He says, "I'm not a preacher," and she says, 23:44.158 --> 23:46.348 "That's okay if you're not a preacher." 23:46.349 --> 23:51.959 It's just something that's in his body; 23:51.960 --> 23:56.410 it's physical. So the car--going back to 23:56.407 --> 24:01.277 the passage that I was talking about before with the Essex--the 24:01.277 --> 24:06.537 car (even though religion is not mentioned directly right here), 24:06.539 --> 24:10.399 the sense of home that it embodies, carries with it all 24:10.404 --> 24:12.484 that sense of unhousedness. 24:12.480 --> 24:17.840 And, because it's a moving house, it carries the sense of 24:17.837 --> 24:21.757 the wandering believer with it as well. 24:21.759 --> 24:27.179 And you get that reinforced on the very next page (if you just 24:27.177 --> 24:32.147 skip over about a page from there): "A black pickup truck 24:32.151 --> 24:35.971 turned off a side road in front of him. 24:35.970 --> 24:39.150 On the back of it, an iron bed and a chair and 24:39.151 --> 24:42.331 table were tied, and on top of them a crate of 24:42.332 --> 24:44.172 Barred Rock chickens." 24:44.170 --> 24:47.540 So other cars on the road looked like houses, 24:47.536 --> 24:49.446 mobile houses, as well. 24:49.450 --> 24:53.800 It's not just Haze's Essex that is imagined as home. 24:53.799 --> 24:56.429 So O'Connor is giving us a version of the road, 24:56.431 --> 24:59.481 and I want you to keep this in mind because of course we're 24:59.483 --> 25:01.433 going to read On the Road, 25:01.430 --> 25:05.250 and we are going to see a major road trip in Lolita, 25:05.254 --> 25:06.924 actually two of them. 25:06.920 --> 25:10.590 So the iconography of the American road is something that 25:10.592 --> 25:12.562 is going to come back to us. 25:12.560 --> 25:15.170 Well, here is our first example. 25:15.170 --> 25:20.230 This is the road of the unhoused, of the spiritually 25:20.225 --> 25:24.285 seeking, of the wandering, of the lost. 25:24.289 --> 25:28.709 People wander in search of some kind of coherent meaning. 25:28.710 --> 25:31.720 25:31.720 --> 25:38.620 I want to now move down a little bit and observe how 25:38.623 --> 25:42.823 landscape is presented to us. 25:42.819 --> 25:45.029 This is after that, "since he was going very 25:45.027 --> 25:47.617 fast…": The highway was ragged 25:47.619 --> 25:51.059 with filling stations and trailer camps and roadhouses. 25:51.059 --> 25:53.489 After a while, there were stretches where red 25:53.491 --> 25:56.201 gullies dropped off on either side of the road, 25:56.200 --> 25:59.810 and behind them there were patches of field buttoned 25:59.809 --> 26:01.649 together with 666 posts. 26:01.650 --> 26:05.800 The sky leaked all over all of it, and then it began to leak in 26:05.799 --> 26:08.229 to the car. The head of a string of pigs 26:08.227 --> 26:10.117 appeared, snout-up, over the ditch, 26:10.118 --> 26:13.508 and he had to screech to a stop and watch the rear of the last 26:13.512 --> 26:16.852 pig disappear shaking into the ditch on the other side. 26:16.849 --> 26:19.589 He started the car again and went on. 26:19.589 --> 26:23.699 He had the feeling that everything he saw was a 26:23.702 --> 26:29.252 broken-off piece of some giant blank thing he had forgotten had 26:29.245 --> 26:33.235 happened to him. So what do we notice about this 26:33.238 --> 26:35.098 landscape? First of all, 26:35.095 --> 26:37.815 it's very much constructed. 26:37.819 --> 26:41.969 It's buttoned together with posts, as if someone had built 26:41.974 --> 26:46.134 it, and--what's more--these are described as 666 posts. 26:46.130 --> 26:51.260 I think this is probably a size of lumber, but you can't get 26:51.257 --> 26:54.817 away from the mythology of that number. 26:54.819 --> 26:57.979 In the Book of Revelation it's the number of the beast; 26:57.980 --> 27:00.000 it's the number of the devil. 27:00.000 --> 27:03.820 It's also a landscape that is full of pigs, 27:03.822 --> 27:07.922 wandering pigs, so if the people are wandering 27:07.917 --> 27:12.327 through this road, the pigs are equally wanderers 27:12.325 --> 27:14.325 throughout these fields. 27:14.330 --> 27:19.980 They're unconfined; they seem to cross the road at 27:19.980 --> 27:23.880 will. The sky, the world above, 27:23.880 --> 27:28.850 is really bound up with the world below. 27:28.849 --> 27:32.399 There is very little separation, even if there is a 27:32.401 --> 27:36.731 sense that the sky is impinging on the earth and not the other 27:36.734 --> 27:41.844 way around. "The sky leaked over all of it." 27:41.839 --> 27:44.119 It's really, in a sense, the physical image 27:44.115 --> 27:45.495 is of rain; it's raining, 27:45.504 --> 27:47.034 so it's leaking all over it. 27:47.030 --> 27:48.630 But there's more than that. 27:48.630 --> 27:52.340 There is this sense of the concerns of the sky somehow, 27:52.337 --> 27:56.017 the concerns of the above; the concerns of the 27:56.016 --> 28:01.466 transcendent are seeping their way in to the concerns of the 28:01.471 --> 28:03.691 material world below. 28:03.690 --> 28:07.430 And then you get that sort of lyrical moment of 28:07.426 --> 28:10.596 interpretation: "He had the feeling that 28:10.595 --> 28:14.895 everything he saw was a broken-off piece of some giant 28:14.900 --> 28:19.450 blank thing he had forgotten had happened to him." 28:19.450 --> 28:23.220 Now this is where the omniscient narrator comes in 28:23.220 --> 28:26.840 quite forcefully, and gives us something to work 28:26.836 --> 28:30.986 on as we analyze Haze and we think about who he is as a 28:30.991 --> 28:34.301 character and where he finds himself. 28:34.299 --> 28:38.059 This connects I think with a whole host of other passages 28:38.064 --> 28:40.264 that have to do with nothingness. 28:40.259 --> 28:43.229 And one of them is right above on that page, 28:43.234 --> 28:46.834 and I read it a little earlier: "thinking nothing and 28:46.831 --> 28:50.461 sweating." It's as if "thinking nothing" 28:50.460 --> 28:54.680 is not a passive activity, but an active one. 28:54.680 --> 28:58.580 So that, to think nothing is something you have to work at; 28:58.579 --> 29:02.229 it's something that you can be preoccupied with. 29:02.230 --> 29:07.800 And similarly, if you look back at 37--this is 29:07.797 --> 29:13.857 again a description of landscape--you can see this 29:13.859 --> 29:18.609 connection between (or, well, somewhat of a 29:18.605 --> 29:22.005 disconnection between) the above and the below, 29:22.009 --> 29:24.229 another description of sky. 29:24.230 --> 29:30.060 This is Hazel walking in Taulkinham: "The black sky was 29:30.059 --> 29:34.019 underpinned with long, silver streaks" (this is the 29:34.021 --> 29:36.911 very beginning of Chapter 3 if you're trying to find it): 29:36.910 --> 29:40.620 …that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth 29:40.619 --> 29:43.959 behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be 29:43.958 --> 29:47.588 moving very slowly, as if they were about some vast 29:47.587 --> 29:51.997 construction work that involved the whole order of the universe 29:52.002 --> 29:54.782 and would take all time to complete. 29:54.779 --> 30:00.369 No one was paying any attention to the sky. 30:00.369 --> 30:05.799 Here that omniscient narrator, as when that narrator looks in 30:05.801 --> 30:09.661 to Haze's mind, offers you a reading of the sky 30:09.655 --> 30:13.755 and its separation from the minds of the characters that 30:13.763 --> 30:16.973 suggests, or makes you look for, 30:16.970 --> 30:19.070 kinds of structure. 30:19.069 --> 30:22.439 Here, it's the construction work; 30:22.440 --> 30:24.140 she actually uses that word. 30:24.140 --> 30:28.000 But you get scaffolding; you get depth or perspective: 30:27.997 --> 30:32.107 counting thousands of stars, "moving…as if they were 30:32.112 --> 30:36.092 about some vast work that involved the whole order of the 30:36.085 --> 30:39.145 universe." It vaults the very concrete 30:39.145 --> 30:43.425 materiality, the physicality, of these characters and their 30:43.433 --> 30:46.853 circumstances. It vaults that discussion into 30:46.853 --> 30:48.803 a much larger, metaphysical, 30:48.799 --> 30:51.899 transcendent context, the whole order of the 30:51.900 --> 30:54.990 universe. It's moments like these 30:54.988 --> 30:58.838 when that omniscient narrator lives up to its name, 30:58.837 --> 31:03.607 that sense of omniscience that we might associate with God. 31:03.609 --> 31:10.069 Another example is at the very opening of the book: 31:10.069 --> 31:13.029 The train was racing through treetops that fell away 31:13.031 --> 31:16.301 at intervals and showed the sun standing very red on the edge of 31:16.304 --> 31:17.504 the farthest woods. 31:17.500 --> 31:21.480 Near the plowed fields curved and faded, and the few hogs 31:21.484 --> 31:25.544 nosing in the furrows looked like large spotted stones. 31:25.539 --> 31:26.149 Mrs. Wally B. 31:26.150 --> 31:28.490 Hitchcock, who was facing Motes in the section, 31:28.493 --> 31:31.343 said that she thought the early evening like this was the 31:31.344 --> 31:34.694 prettiest time of day, and she asked him if he didn't 31:34.690 --> 31:37.530 think so too. "Pretty" is not exactly the 31:37.530 --> 31:40.710 word that comes to mind--at least not to my mind--when I 31:40.708 --> 31:43.738 read this. It's more like "heavy" or 31:43.735 --> 31:48.465 "saturated," and there's again pigs running around. 31:48.470 --> 31:52.720 Again there is a biblical iconography behind this. 31:52.720 --> 31:57.230 There are two instances that come to my mind. 31:57.230 --> 32:02.660 When demons are cast out by the apostles and sent into a herd of 32:02.658 --> 32:07.138 pigs, and the pigs go running off a cliff and die; 32:07.140 --> 32:08.390 that's one image. 32:08.390 --> 32:13.610 Another is the admonition not to throw your pearls before 32:13.610 --> 32:17.710 swine, not to preach to those who can't hear, 32:17.712 --> 32:20.232 or won't be perceptive. 32:20.230 --> 32:25.320 So these moments of landscape description offer up 32:25.324 --> 32:29.754 that consistently Christian-inflected theory of 32:29.745 --> 32:33.545 the universe, that sense of transcendence as 32:33.547 --> 32:37.157 structure, as something that's moving inexorably, 32:37.160 --> 32:39.000 that will take all time to complete. 32:39.000 --> 32:41.910 It has a project; it has a teleology. 32:41.910 --> 32:45.440 So, that's present in all of these moments, 32:45.438 --> 32:50.138 but--equally present--I want to get back to this sense of 32:50.143 --> 32:53.693 blankness. There is a vagueness to this 32:53.691 --> 32:58.691 language that I think is quite calculated, and it relates, 32:58.690 --> 33:04.630 in Haze's case, to his determination to not be 33:04.628 --> 33:09.378 converted to evil, but to nothing. 33:09.380 --> 33:14.640 When he's in the army, he says--he decides--he can get 33:14.636 --> 33:19.986 rid of Jesus by converting not to evil, but to nothing, 33:19.991 --> 33:22.571 to believe in nothing. 33:22.569 --> 33:26.919 So what O'Connor does, is she presents a sense of the 33:26.923 --> 33:30.443 world imbued with structure and meaning, 33:30.440 --> 33:35.640 but a structure and meaning that looks essentially blank. 33:35.640 --> 33:38.580 And I think the task of the novel is to fill that structure 33:38.576 --> 33:38.826 in. 33:38.830 --> 33:42.970 33:42.970 --> 33:47.320 The last thing I want to point out, in this passage from 33:47.319 --> 33:51.739 here to the end of the chapter, is the way that Haze's senses 33:51.742 --> 33:55.032 are described. We already talked a little bit 33:55.034 --> 33:57.854 about his name and the occlusion of sight. 33:57.849 --> 34:00.809 The trope of sight is obviously extremely important here. 34:00.810 --> 34:02.700 We have the blind preacher. 34:02.700 --> 34:05.080 There are more things, which I won't reveal, 34:05.076 --> 34:08.056 that happen at the end of the novel to do with this. 34:08.059 --> 34:11.329 If you haven't read, I won't give it away. 34:11.329 --> 34:16.279 But here, there are simpler examples: when the truck pulls 34:16.282 --> 34:20.802 up in front of Haze and starts moving very slowly, 34:20.800 --> 34:25.960 "Haze started pounding his horn, and he had hit it three 34:25.963 --> 34:30.943 times before he realized it didn't make any sound." 34:30.940 --> 34:32.900 He keeps doing this. 34:32.900 --> 34:37.100 When he comes to the roadside sign, "Woe to the blasphemer and 34:37.097 --> 34:41.597 whore monger. Will hell swallow you up?" 34:41.599 --> 34:44.099 it says "The pickup truck slowed even more, 34:44.096 --> 34:47.486 as if it were reading the sign, and Haze pounded his empty 34:47.485 --> 34:50.965 horn. He beat on it and beat on it 34:50.967 --> 34:54.227 but it didn't make any sound." 34:54.230 --> 34:59.810 He doesn't at first hear the horn fail to blow, 34:59.806 --> 35:05.016 and then later, when a truck pulls up behind 35:05.019 --> 35:10.959 him, he fails to hear a horn that does blow: 35:10.960 --> 35:13.430 He was looking at the sign, and he didn't hear the 35:13.426 --> 35:15.266 horn. An oil truck as long as a 35:15.267 --> 35:17.037 railroad car was behind him. 35:17.039 --> 35:20.019 In a second, a red, square face was at his 35:20.016 --> 35:23.476 car window. It watched the back of his neck 35:23.476 --> 35:27.696 and hat for a minute, and then a hand came in and sat 35:27.697 --> 35:30.757 on his shoulder. The driver's expression and his 35:30.758 --> 35:33.838 hand stayed exactly the way they were, as if he didn't hear very 35:33.844 --> 35:37.504 well. These two characters are as if 35:37.498 --> 35:42.048 there is a wall between them, a wall of foam. 35:42.050 --> 35:43.590 They can't hear each other. 35:43.590 --> 35:47.810 They're insulated from understanding what the other is 35:47.807 --> 35:49.317 preoccupied with. 35:49.320 --> 35:53.950 In Haze's case, he does this over and over and 35:53.951 --> 35:59.131 over again. And the most pitiful example of 35:59.129 --> 36:02.329 it is on 57. Poor Enoch! 36:02.329 --> 36:07.209 I feel so bad for him in this passage. 36:07.210 --> 36:11.680 Enoch is trying to hang out with Haze. 36:11.679 --> 36:15.089 This is on the bottom of 56, probably your 52. 36:15.090 --> 36:19.520 36:19.519 --> 36:21.899 Haze is trying to get rid of Enoch: 36:21.900 --> 36:23.610 "Listen," Haze said roughly, "I got business of my 36:23.613 --> 36:25.683 own. I seen all of you I want." 36:25.680 --> 36:27.500 He began walking very fast. 36:27.500 --> 36:29.770 Enoch kept skipping steps to keep up. 36:29.769 --> 36:32.589 "I been here two months," he said, "and I don't know nobody. 36:32.590 --> 36:33.850 People ain't friendly here. 36:33.849 --> 36:36.619 I got me a room and there ain't never nobody in it but me. 36:36.620 --> 36:38.140 My daddy said I had to come. 36:38.139 --> 36:40.249 I would never have come but he made me. 36:40.250 --> 36:42.030 I think I seen you somewheres before. 36:42.030 --> 36:43.540 You ain't from Stockwell, are you?" 36:43.540 --> 36:44.810 "No." "Melsey?" 36:44.810 --> 36:48.090 "No." "Sawmill set there- set up 36:48.089 --> 36:50.289 there once," Enoch said. 36:50.289 --> 36:52.859 "Looked like you had kind of a familiar face." 36:52.860 --> 36:55.380 They walked on without saying anything until they got to the 36:55.376 --> 36:56.226 main street again. 36:56.230 --> 36:57.280 It was almost deserted. 36:57.280 --> 36:58.490 "Goodbye," Haze said. 36:58.489 --> 37:01.799 "I'm going thisaway too," Enoch said in a sullen voice. 37:01.800 --> 37:05.340 On the left there was a movie house where the electric bill 37:05.339 --> 37:06.559 was being changed. 37:06.559 --> 37:07.759 "[And then I'm going to skip down.] 37:07.757 --> 37:09.657 "My daddy made me come," he said in a cracked voice. 37:09.659 --> 37:13.719 Haze looked at him and saw he was crying, his face seamed and 37:13.719 --> 37:15.749 wet and a purple-pink color. 37:15.750 --> 37:19.300 "I ain't but 18 years old," he cried, "and he made me come and 37:19.299 --> 37:20.579 I don't know nobody. 37:20.579 --> 37:22.919 Nobody here'll have nothin' to do with nobody else. 37:22.920 --> 37:24.030 They ain't friendly. 37:24.030 --> 37:26.620 He done gone off with a woman and made me come but she ain't 37:26.616 --> 37:30.706 going to stay for long." Okay, and so on and so on. 37:30.710 --> 37:33.010 Poor Enoch! Does Haze care? 37:33.010 --> 37:34.760 No; not at all. 37:34.760 --> 37:37.860 "Haze looked straight ahead, with his face set." 37:37.860 --> 37:43.730 Poor Enoch. Nothing can penetrate Haze's 37:43.729 --> 37:47.649 imperviousness to other human beings. 37:47.650 --> 37:53.580 If Haze is busy looking at something, what he's looking at 37:53.575 --> 37:59.185 is manifestly not the person in front of him. 37:59.190 --> 38:04.500 He can't hear major elements of the soundscape: 38:04.504 --> 38:07.744 the truck horn behind him. 38:07.739 --> 38:11.299 He can't hear his own horn, whether it blows or not. 38:11.300 --> 38:14.450 He can't hear the voices of other people. 38:14.450 --> 38:17.750 What he sees is a mystery. 38:17.750 --> 38:21.730 As Sabbath Lily says, "his eyes, they don't look like 38:21.732 --> 38:24.262 they see what he's looking at." 38:24.260 --> 38:26.390 What is he looking at, then? 38:26.389 --> 38:31.899 I think we're meant to understand that he is so focused 38:31.897 --> 38:37.807 on the question of redemption that he fails to see anything 38:37.812 --> 38:41.342 else; he fails to see anyone else in 38:41.340 --> 38:44.560 his preoccupation with that problem. 38:44.559 --> 38:49.399 Now I want to switch gears, just for the last couple 38:49.400 --> 38:53.800 minutes, and ask you: what do you see when you read 38:53.800 --> 38:57.660 this novel? And I'm going to suggest to you 38:57.659 --> 38:59.789 something to think about. 38:59.790 --> 39:01.390 I see body parts. 39:01.389 --> 39:06.729 When I read this novel, I see a lot of dismembered body 39:06.729 --> 39:08.279 parts. What do I mean by that? 39:08.280 --> 39:09.590 Well, let's take a look. 39:09.590 --> 39:18.460 On page 32(try 28; see if you can find it), 39:18.456 --> 39:23.596 this is Haze coming to the house of Leora Watts: 39:23.601 --> 39:30.281 "He went up to the front porch and put his eye to a convenient 39:30.278 --> 39:36.518 crack in the shade and found himself looking directly at a 39:36.517 --> 39:41.407 large, white knee." 39:41.410 --> 39:42.390 And what's she doing? 39:42.390 --> 39:44.260 She's cutting her toenails. 39:44.260 --> 39:46.070 "Mrs. Watts was sitting alone in a 39:46.066 --> 39:49.076 white iron bed cutting her toenails with a large pair of 39:49.078 --> 39:51.578 scissors. She was a big woman with very 39:51.583 --> 39:54.923 yellow hair and white skin that glistened with a greasy 39:54.922 --> 39:57.322 preparation. She had on a pink nightgown 39:57.318 --> 39:59.818 that would have better fit a smaller figure." 39:59.820 --> 40:03.610 That large, white knee: the way this 40:03.607 --> 40:08.947 narration allows us to see through Haze's eyes begins to 40:08.948 --> 40:14.088 take the whole body apart, so what he sees is not Mrs. 40:14.094 --> 40:17.184 Watts; he sees a large, white knee. 40:17.179 --> 40:22.879 We saw a version of this also in the passage I was reading 40:22.876 --> 40:27.866 just before, where "a hand" comes in the window and 40:27.872 --> 40:31.772 rests--"lands"--on Haze's shoulder. 40:31.770 --> 40:34.440 "A square, red face." 40:34.440 --> 40:36.570 And then these things, these body parts, 40:36.566 --> 40:39.016 are then referred to with the pronoun "it"; 40:39.019 --> 40:42.259 "it," the hand, did this or that. 40:42.260 --> 40:47.400 Take a look at page 18. 40:47.400 --> 40:53.620 40:53.619 --> 40:59.899 This is Mrs. Hitchcock in the train; 40:59.900 --> 41:01.040 it's Haze bumping into Mrs. 41:01.035 --> 41:03.465 Hitchcock: Going around the corner, 41:03.466 --> 41:05.966 he ran in to something heavy and pink. 41:05.969 --> 41:08.989 It gasped and muttered, "Clumsy." 41:08.989 --> 41:11.189 It was Mrs. Hitchcock in a pink wrapper 41:11.188 --> 41:13.558 with her hair in knots around her head. 41:13.559 --> 41:16.609 She looked at him with her eyes squinted nearly shut. 41:16.610 --> 41:20.020 The knobs framed her face like dark toadstools. 41:20.019 --> 41:22.219 She tried to get past him, and he tried to let her, 41:22.218 --> 41:24.458 but they were both moving the same way each time. 41:24.460 --> 41:28.850 Her face became purplish except for little, white marks over it 41:28.848 --> 41:32.398 that didn't heat up. It's that she's rotting; 41:32.400 --> 41:36.300 there is mushrooms growing on her, figurative mushrooms 41:36.300 --> 41:37.890 growing on her head. 41:37.889 --> 41:40.979 Her face is purple except for the white marks. 41:40.980 --> 41:46.090 The white marks are little scars, acne scars perhaps. 41:46.090 --> 41:50.180 She is a sort of mass of flesh. 41:50.179 --> 41:52.329 As Mrs. Watts, that pink 41:52.331 --> 41:57.381 wrapper--actually two pink wrappers, too tight on their 41:57.382 --> 42:01.872 bodies--suggest the excess of their corporeality, 42:01.873 --> 42:04.963 they"re big hunks of flesh. 42:04.960 --> 42:15.630 On 62, we get an account of Haze's childhood sin. 42:15.630 --> 42:23.120 He goes into the freak show at the fair, and he joins the crowd 42:23.118 --> 42:26.378 where his father also is. 42:26.380 --> 42:29.060 "They were looking down into a lowered place, 42:29.063 --> 42:32.173 where something white was lying, squirming a little, 42:32.174 --> 42:34.374 in a box lined with black cloth. 42:34.369 --> 42:36.919 For a second he thought it was a skinned animal, 42:36.917 --> 42:38.757 and then he saw it was a woman." 42:38.760 --> 42:42.730 42:42.730 --> 42:47.130 On 15 (I'm going to skip back to the train; 42:47.130 --> 42:50.820 I'm just going to rack these up for you, and then we'll think 42:50.815 --> 42:54.005 about them), this is Haze waiting to be seated in the 42:54.008 --> 42:57.688 dining car of the train: Haze hesitated and saw 42:57.690 --> 43:00.880 the hand jerk again [the hand of the steward]. 43:00.880 --> 43:04.120 He lurched up the aisle, falling against two tables on 43:04.118 --> 43:07.538 the way and getting his hand wet in somebody's coffee. 43:07.539 --> 43:11.189 The steward placed him with three youngish women dressed 43:11.185 --> 43:14.625 like parrots. Their hands were resting on the 43:14.625 --> 43:17.145 table, red speared at the tips. 43:17.150 --> 43:20.370 He sat and looked in front of him--[I'm skipping down a little 43:20.366 --> 43:23.206 bit], glum and intense, at the neck of the woman across 43:23.214 --> 43:25.554 from him. At intervals her hand holding 43:25.552 --> 43:28.232 the cigarette would pass the spot on her neck. 43:28.230 --> 43:32.040 It would go out of his sight, and then it would pass again 43:32.044 --> 43:34.524 going back down to the table. 43:34.519 --> 43:39.589 What do we make of these odd moments of description? 43:39.590 --> 43:42.190 Why all these body parts hanging around? 43:42.190 --> 43:50.240 Why this sense of disgusting, excessive body matter? 43:50.239 --> 43:56.199 It's often women who appear in this guise, but it's not always 43:56.198 --> 43:59.828 women. What I want to suggest to you 43:59.828 --> 44:05.818 is that, when we actually look at the sentences on the page, 44:05.820 --> 44:11.770 when we look at the words that O'Connor chose in the moments of 44:11.773 --> 44:16.023 the narration, we see something that becomes 44:16.015 --> 44:21.325 more complicated than the "Flannery O'Connor is a Catholic 44:21.333 --> 44:24.593 writer"; "Haze Motes is a Christian 44:26.900 --> 44:30.330 That's a kind of focus. 44:30.329 --> 44:34.809 If we think about this, analogize it to how Haze looks, 44:34.813 --> 44:39.133 it's a way of looking at O'Connor's fiction that sees 44:39.131 --> 44:42.371 nothing but the theology behind it, 44:42.369 --> 44:46.889 that sees nothing but the Christian iconography. 44:46.889 --> 44:50.889 And I want to ask: what is it that we don't see, 44:50.891 --> 44:53.021 when that's all we see? 44:53.020 --> 44:57.460 What do we miss? I've begun to point out a 44:57.463 --> 45:01.793 few things that I think we miss: the fragmentation of bodies. 45:01.789 --> 45:04.719 Why are bodies consistently fragmented--not just 45:04.716 --> 45:07.266 here--everywhere in O'Connor's fiction? 45:07.269 --> 45:11.149 People are always losing a wooden leg and having parts of 45:11.154 --> 45:12.754 their limbs fall off. 45:12.750 --> 45:16.080 It's very hard to keep a body together in O'Connor, 45:16.080 --> 45:18.610 hard to keep body and soul…well, 45:18.611 --> 45:20.411 I won't get in to that. 45:20.410 --> 45:26.350 So why is that? What kind of methodology for 45:26.349 --> 45:29.989 reading would allow us to have something to say about that? 45:29.989 --> 45:32.229 Is it something we need to have something to say about? 45:32.230 --> 45:37.510 Is it in the same register of importance in our reading as 45:37.512 --> 45:42.572 some of these more theological, structural considerations that 45:42.568 --> 45:46.298 have been offered to us in her letters, in her preface, 45:46.300 --> 45:50.830 and in the very overt symbology of the landscape scenes, 45:50.828 --> 45:55.438 of these other scenes that I was reading to you today, 45:55.440 --> 46:01.440 in that image of the unhoused believer trying to find a home 46:01.444 --> 46:03.484 in an alien world? 46:03.480 --> 46:07.830 So, in my next lecture, what I'm going to do is pretty 46:07.825 --> 46:11.175 much contradict most of what I said today. 46:11.179 --> 46:18.049 I'm going to set aside theology as the lens through which I 46:18.050 --> 46:20.830 read. And, if you felt you were 46:20.828 --> 46:25.578 convinced by my reading of that iconography in these passages, 46:25.581 --> 46:29.791 then you want to think about why that's convincing. 46:29.789 --> 46:33.949 You want to think about how much attention and primacy we 46:33.949 --> 46:38.109 should give to an author's statements about what her work 46:38.110 --> 46:39.670 mean--as readers. 46:39.670 --> 46:43.960 Maybe you want to say, "You can't argue with that; 46:43.960 --> 46:46.030 we have to accept that. 46:46.030 --> 46:48.660 That's really what the writer intends to say, 46:48.662 --> 46:51.952 and that's what we should see, and that's what we should 46:51.954 --> 46:53.514 strive to understand." 46:53.510 --> 46:56.790 Well, I'm going to offer you two different ways--actually 46:56.794 --> 46:59.964 more like three different ways--to look at the novel in 46:59.961 --> 47:01.311 the second lecture. 47:01.309 --> 47:06.319 So, finish the novel for next Wednesday, and we will go from 47:06.320 --> 47:07.000 there.